Before Zoom, Teams or even WhatsApp, Skype existed. The application, launched in 2003 by a group of Estonian and Swedes developers, revolutionized the way we communicated online. At a time when international calls were expensive and the video calls for a technical luxury, Skype offered a free, accessible and surprisingly stable channel.
What was that of Skype?
The term Skype became synonymous with speaking online, and it was not uncommon for someone to say “te Skypéo” as if it were another verb. For many, especially during the golden years between 2005 and 2015, It was the essential tool to maintain contact with family members abroad, have remote work meetings or even start remote relationships.
One of Skype’s great successes was his sound identity. That characteristic incoming call tone is still recorded in the collective memory, such as Messenger’s buzz or the a whistle of ancient modems. But it was not only nostalgia: Skype was a pioneer in Efficient voice coding and fluid video calls even with slow connectionswhich made it a valuable tool in business, academic and personal environments.
Microsoft bought Skype in 2011 by 8,500 million dollars. From there, the app lived a progressive transformation, integrating into services such as Outlook or Xbox, although many users began to migrate to other more modern, light and focused on mobile platforms.
-The silent decline
With the arrival of services such as Zoom, Google Meet or WhatsApp with video calls, Skype was losing prominence. The 2020 pandemic, which could have been its great moment, served instead to show its deficiencies: outdated interface, high consumption of resources and lack of fluid integration in mobiles.
Despite Microsoft’s efforts to revitalize it, even renamed it as “Skype for Business”, The battle was lost. TEams, also from Microsoft, ended up absorbing the space that Skype had occupied for years.
And an era was closed
The withdrawal of Skype’s free services on May 5, 2025 Mark the end of an era. It is no longer possible to make free calls or video calls between users, and the app officially becomes part of technological history, like so many others that marked a generation.
Although many no longer used it daily, Skype remains in collective memory as one of those tools that defined the 2000 internet and helped to bring people closer when the distance seemed insurmountable.
Despite its end, the impact of Skype SIgue I live in each video call What do we do today. It was the gateway to a new way of communicating, and taught the world that it was not necessary to be in the same room to see, talk and share moments.
